One thing which really impresses me is about this documentary is how well the footage from that era has been remastered.
Dr. J, of course, was a big part of the ABA, but I’m glad Episode Three did not cover Dr. J alone, because it seems to me the ABA pushed boundaries. It got into the Silna brother owning the Spirits of St. Louis at a young age and bringing in a fresh 22-year-old named Bob Costas and how he almost squandered his broadcasting career with a gaffe, but it slid. That must’ve been incredible that the Spirits of St. Louis actually upset the Nets in the 1975 playoffs.
Another thing about pushing barriers? Women in leadership, as John Y. Brown and the Brown family, who owned KFC, sold the Colonels (the name makes sense, Harland Sanders was made a Kentucky Colonel, hence his nickname, plus the Brown Family owned KFC and the franchise). So, they sold, the rebought the team, John Y. Brown gets into Democratic politics, and above all else, Ellie Brown is tasked with running the team and an all-women board. The pushback, of course, is fierce, yet Ellie had some marketing genius to her, and the Hubie Brown hire capped off a dominant championship season.
I loved what Swin Cash said in that episode, that if you care more about a woman being in charge than success, that she questions business practices. If only the American electorate could learn the same thing.
I knew, obviously, the ABA and NBA merged in ‘76, didn’t know how. So, I was shocked to see the Nuggets and Nets applied for NBA membership, despite the successes the Nets had in the ABA.
I mean, they got into the stuff of how the ABA was beating the NBA quite good in these exhibition games, and got into Bob Ryan admitting he was wrong about Billy Paultz, how he held his own against Dave Cowens. The Whopper gets overlooked.
Really, if we think about it, some of the more underrated players in the sport’s history played in the ABA. Artis Gilmore and Mel Daniels are criminally, historically underrated. I know the first instinct is to say Reggie Miller is the greatest Pacer of all time. In my opinion, Reggie Miller is the greatest NBA/post-merger Pacer, but I honestly think the greatest Pacer is the late Mel Daniels.
Let’s see how the fourth and final episode goes. It looks like they’ll cover the first dunk contest, and of course, the merger.
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